After U.S. firm Anthropic disabled its most advanced models for foreign nationals, Japan's Sakana AI and China's 360 Security Technology each rolled out alternative models in late June. The moves rushed to fill the gap created by the restrictions, spreading quickly among Asian AI companies.
June 2026 · AI Export Controls
US Curbs Pull Anthropic's Top Models — Asian Rivals Rush the Gap
When an export-control order forced Anthropic to suspend Fable 5 and Mythos 5 worldwide, AI firms in China and Japan moved within days to launch models claiming comparable cyber and reasoning capability — open, cheap, and free of US restrictions.
3
Asian firms launched rival models since mid-June
~10×
cheaper API: GLM-5.2 vs Anthropic pricing
3,432
vulnerabilities found by 360's Tulongfeng (105 confirmed)
The price gap, drawn to scale
API output cost per 1M tokens — Anthropic (restricted) vs the open-weight challenger.
$50
Anthropic
Fable 5 / Mythos 5
~$5
GLM-5.2
Zhipu AI · MIT open
Each block ≈ $5 per 1M output tokens — roughly a tenth of the cost.
Jun 9 · Anthropic ships Fable 5 + Mythos 5
→
Jun 12–13 · US order forces worldwide suspension
→
Jun 13–24 · Asian rivals launch into the gap
The challengers' pitch
GLM-5.2 (Zhipu) — 744B MoE, 1M-token context, MIT open weights; first open model usable as a daily driverTulongfeng (Qihoo 360) — multi-agent vulnerability finder, billed as a "Chinese Mythos"Fugu (Sakana AI) — agent-orchestration focus, claimed peer to Fable 5
The caution
Chinese-built APIs may fall under China's national intelligence law
Independent benchmarks remain limited and unverified
Unclear if Tulongfeng matches Mythos's reasoning depth
Releases so recent that first-hand usage reports are scarce
The bigger shift: Washington treated model access itself as an export-controlled good — an unusual move. The curbs aimed to limit foreign access, but the prolonged ban handed open-weight, low-cost Asian rivals a clear opening.
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